


Take A Chance On Me

by Crazythatcounts



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Death Wish, Depression, Drug Abuse, F/M, Heavy Angst, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Recreational Drug Use, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 00:07:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5353433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazythatcounts/pseuds/Crazythatcounts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He woke up, and the only thing he wanted was to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger, because anything was better than knowing he lost his son to monsters living in a sea of other monsters. But when he finds himself in the care of one recently exiled reporter and one recently undead mayor, it's up to his two new companions to give him something worth living for. </p><p>Fallout AU (Multiple companions, no major spoilers for any quests), TW suicide, suicidal thoughts, drug use, drug abuse. Does not go easy on the suicidal bit, read at your own discretion. Please do not leave any Fallout 4 spoilers in the comments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

This was hell. That’s all he could really think, stumbling into the blinding light of the new world. He’d woken up the second time, gripped with cold, his breath coming back to him in short, biting gasps, and for a long time he couldn’t breath. He couldn’t pull the breath into his lungs, couldn’t do anything but cling to the frozen edges of his death prison and clutch at himself and try and make himself feel _real_. Even when he could find his legs and stumble to the other chamber and bang hopelessly on everything he could find until it finally popped open like a sealed back of chips he didn’t feel _real_. His wife, lover, _friend_ , frozen there like a hunk of beef long past due, ice collected on her hands, her face, her eyelashes. He reached up to touch her face, feel the skin so cold and tight under his hands, considered briefly leaving one last kiss and realizing with an ill placed _chuckle_ that was a bad idea. It wouldn’t be a good time if his lips got stuck there until his lover thawed.

 

The brain has a wonderful way of adding in funny thoughts even in the pits of hell itself, he thought.

 

The wedding ring his wife had clinked to the ground balefully, having finally thawed off the shrunken fingers. He reached for it, cold against his hands, fingers slipping against the gold metal, and for the first time since he breathed again something felt _real_. He felt grounded when he touched it, like he remembered what it once was to live just for that moment, just for that second, and he clutched at that ring like a lifeline. They were different sizes, and he couldn’t wear it, not on his hands, so he stuffed it in his pocket, just where he could reach it. He needed to get a chain. He moved for the exit, the voice overhead a murmur of nothing, nothing he could really _hear_ anyway, not in his fuzzy, fucked up head. Not when he felt like he was floating up the stairs, not when he was afraid to touch for fear of whatever it was just not being there. He touched the ring again, hands shaking. It was hard, this. Coming back from dead, more or less, to find everything was different. It felt like a dream. A terrible, rotten, no good, very bad dream.

 

He found a pistol, and that felt heavy in his hands, and things never had weight in dreams, and that grounded him a little. The heft of it gave him something to hold onto that wasn’t going to get him killed. He really, really needed that chain - reaching into his pocket every time he felt like he would float away was going to get him killed, and he knew it, and he needed to change that - so he clutched at the pistol until it stopped feeling like it weighed anything, stopped having weight in his hands. He considered tossing it, but it still had rounds, and with roaches the size of cats, he couldn’t afford to drop an effective weapon. His training wouldn’t let him abandon it, not even when he found that arm-computer-Pip box and clapped that to his arm and realized with fear that there was absolutely no going back.

 

This was hell, and he knew it. The world was bright, hot, muggy, tickling at his hands and face. The sun was too harsh on his eyes, used to the dark of the Vault, the rays too warm on his skin. It bristled at the warmth, used to being so cold for so, so long. He felt like a Popsicle exposed to the light of day for the first time in years, and he shivered. He felt his hair stand on end under the Vault suit with goosebumps, and he pulled at the blue stretch lycra he’d been imprisoned in for so many years.

 

He needed to find a change of clothes. He needed to get out of this damn body suit and feel real clothes against his skin. He needed the sensation, he needed to really _feel_ something again, he needed to remind himself he wasn’t just dreaming, that this wasn’t some elaborate prank. He needed to remind himself this was _real_ , and he was _real_ , and that his wife’s death and his son’s kidnapping weren’t figments of his imagination. Maybe if he could make it real, he’d want to go find his son. Maybe if he made it real, he wouldn’t think he’d find his house and find his wife making pancakes in the morning; maybe if he could make everything _real_ again he could go ahead and _grieve_ and get the fuck over it, because the world he found himself walking in did not seem like the kind to pity those who’d lost loved ones. It seemed to be the kind that ate those who grieved _alive_ and he couldn’t afford that. He needed to stop floating so he could force himself over it.

 

He followed the path down without thinking, mindlessly walking it out of some muscle memory, the scene of his old home unfolding in front of him like some movie was playing in front of his eyes. He clutched the pistol in one hand and the ring in the other and wandered onto his street, taking in the devastation. Everything around him was rotting, blown away, _destroyed_. He approached the first building he saw and pressed his hands to the cold metal, clutching it tightly. People lived here, neighbors, he liked them, they’d invite them to cookouts, this was their house and it was _gone_ , gutted and falling apart and he could feel it under his hands that way. His hands shook when he pulled away, and he still felt strange, other worldly, so he wandered for his own home. He spotted the powder blue walls and he stopped out front and he stared, like he was looking at a museum painting and not something that honestly _happened_.

 

He slowly wandered in, touching the door that still stood, touching the walls and the shelves. They had things here, paintings, his flag, his wife’s degree, books. He found the flag and opened the case, pulling it to his face. It smelled like home, smelled like his old life, and he was holding it in this hell and his hands were starting to shake again and his back was shaking and this was starting to really click in his mind. He dropped the flag, raced for his bedroom, saw the bed destroyed, saw the dresser on the floor in shambles and then he turned and took the few steps into his son’s room and his knees gave out as he collapsed on the crib. It was whole, still, the mobile bent, the changing table in shambles, the walls caved out. He gripped the tiny plane and his hands shook and his back shook and those were sobs because he was crying because he was _home_ now, but this wasn’t his home. This was the shambles of a life he’d been forced back into, and it was _real_ and he felt the ground under his knees and the crib under his hands and he wasn’t _floating_ anymore and he cried.

 

He cried and cried, cried until his old robot found him, tried to speak to him like nothing happened, tried to get him to play checkers or charades and he _screamed_ at the request because there was no reason anymore. This was _real_ , this was his life now. His wife was dead, long dead, frozen and locked away tight beneath the ground in a grave neither of them had expected they’d be entering when the world ended, and his son was _gone_ and he was probably dead, probably lost to the world around them that was desperate for blood. How could a baby last out in this terrible place? Just walking down the ridge made the Pip-Boy click at him desperately, a sound he recognized from old movies as the sign of radiation. How could a _baby_ survive out here? He couldn’t, he just couldn’t. So he screamed at Cogsworth, screamed until his voice was hoarse and his throat felt like it was bleeding and then he couldn’t scream anymore and he just stayed there and cried, because what else could he do?

 

Cogsworth brought him a blanket at some point, and eventually his tears stopped. There weren’t any left to cry. He pulled the pistol out of his pocket and considered it. He could honestly just press the metal to his chin right now and end it, completely, once and for all. This wouldn’t be the first time he thought about it, and considering what was ahead of him, it felt like a good choice. He was facing war out there, and war never changes. The chill against his chin made him grimace, the pressure against his throat making it a little harder to breath, his finger shaking on the trigger, but he couldn’t do it. He’d wanted to, several times, just to escape the inevitable that was war, but his wife talked him out of it over and over again. _Don_ _’t_ , she’d say, softly, curling around him in bed at night, _go where I can_ _’t follow_. She’d hold him, and he’d sigh, and he’d be okay for a few days or a week or sometimes even a month. He pulled the gun from his throat, tossing it to the floor. He couldn’t do it, not until he was sure. Not until he was sure as shit Shaun was dead. Maybe he had survived, maybe he had been taken care of, it was a long shot but he had to.

 

He wished, in the back of his mind, that he’d asked his wife the same thing, just once. _Don_ _’t go where I can’t follow_.

 

He rubbed his face, tossing off the blanket and reaching for his gun, pocketing it. It was cold, and it felt better against his hip than it did his throat. He needed to get himself together, he couldn’t just _give up_. What kind of father just _gave up_? Maybe he’d find people, he told himself. Maybe he’d find kind people, people who wanted to help him, people who were competent against the world and who knew where his son was and help him. He couldn’t find Shaun alone, that was for certain. He could barely fight giant roaches - if he left on a quest for his son alone he would most certainly never make it. He needed help, and he had time - Shaun was either already dead, or he was safe enough. He had no idea how long had passed, and maybe Shaun was an old man. Maybe Shaun had passed away on his own. Maybe he’d grown up and had a wife and had grandkids and passed on all while his father lay frozen in a temporary grave. Right now, he couldn’t think about that, not like that, because thinking too hard like that would mean he’d have his own gun to his head again and he couldn’t trust himself to stay his hand a second time. He needed to get up and get moving, keep himself busy to keep the idea at bay.

 

He found some jeans and a shirt in his drawers, dirty but without holes, and that felt better than the stretch lyrca hell he’d been wearing. He didn’t want to have to be reminded of the terrible things that had happened back in that grave that was emblazoned on his back. He felt a little better in the clothes, and as he wandered onto the streets, he stared at the old places he was leaving behind with a sad fondness. He wouldn’t be coming back here, he knew it. He wasn’t getting close to that grave again if he could help it, not in a thousand years, not as long as he was trying to stay his own hand and keep that gun in his pocket. He was going to pick a direction and walk, walk until he couldn’t anymore, fight what he could until he couldn’t fight anymore, and if for some reason he died out there, he died trying, at least. At least until he could gauge the people around him and see what was going on, see if they were kind or if they were rotten. If, he told himself, setting off south, if they were for some reason terrible people, then he had his answers. If they were terrible, that meant Shaun was dead, and there was nothing to be out here for. He might as well finally put a bullet to his temple and end it, join them both in whatever it was that came after. Better than living knowing he missed the chance to save his son from a terrible fate, better than living with that itch and not being able to go through with it.

 

The sun was bright in the sky, and the wastes stretched on around him, barren and open and deadly. He had a smile on his face as he trudged down the hillside, small and sad but there, because at least he had a destination, something to keep him going, something to keep that ten-millimeter handgun out from under his chin, whether it lasted him a day or a week or a month, he had it. At this point, anything was better than sitting there trying to do the deed and being plagued with the idea that he had things he still hadn’t finished he could do instead. Maybe by the time he found out the world was just as hellish as it was before it ended, he would have found something else to keep him going, because that’s what life was now, a series of things that would keep him going just long enough. He was perfectly okay bouncing from one thing keeping him alive to another, because he knew at some point he’d get his answers and he’d find himself ready to let the world go and join his wife in the relatively simple hell that was death. At least in death he didn’t have to deal with mutated animals, just the monsters he was used to, and it was something he was honestly looking forward to at the end of the road that stretched before him. Now it was all just a matter of how long that road was.


	2. Chapter 2

This was a fucking _disaster_. They weren’t letting her into Diamond City, because of a paper she wrote that wasn’t even _wrong_. It was infuriating, to say the least. She was used to the shitty treatment, the terrible looks, the hateful stares and the quiet gossiping once she rounded a corner, but this was _some shit_. She pounded at the receiver box like maybe if she just hit it hard enough they’d let her inside. “Look, you can’t just lock me out! I have a sister!” She snapped. Maybe if she invoked the right of family, they’d realize they were making a terrible mistake. Maybe if she just reminded them she was human, really human, they’d take pity on her and let her back in. At least she wasn’t a ghoul, or a synth, and could plead that humanity. She was lucky.

 

“Sorry, Piper, I can’t let you in. Maybe you should have thought about your sister before you wrote that paper.” The guard wasn’t hostile, and that was all the more frustrating. She couldn’t even be rightfully mad at _him specifically_ , because he was just doing his job and it was obvious he held some kind of pity for her situation. His tone spoke volumes about how if it was his choice, he’d let her in in a heartbeat, and that made everything just a little more terrible, because the people Piper was mad at weren’t even around for her to be _mad at._

_“_ What if I told you there was a, uh, a guy out here! And he’s _hurt_!” Piper tried very hard to think of a lie on the spot, and she could tell from the silence she got in response that it was a very terrible lie. She definitely could have thought better, maybe if she worked on it for a second, or had someone there to back her up. But there were only guards patrolling, ignoring her, and she was alone. “ _Fuck_.” She lashed out gently, kicking the receiver with her boot like it personally wronged her. What was a girl to do this day and age about these kinds of things? It wasn’t like she had any influence or power to just worm her way in anyway - it was the opposite, really. She leaned against the door, deciding to stay right there in silent protest until someone came in or out of the city, so she could sneak in when they opened the gate.

 

The city was dark around the light, and she huddled a little closer in her coat. She didn’t like the idea of being cast back into the darkness that was the city, ready to fall prey to the Super Mutants that prowled around there in the dark. She didn’t mind a little trouble, of course, but a pack of Super Mutants and their dogs was more than a little trouble, and probably just a bit more than she could reasonably handle. And when all she wanted to do was get back inside and check on her sister, a tango with something over her head would do the opposite of helping. It was cold, and she huddled further into the light, trying to keep warm and alert. She needed to start thinking of a Plan B, even if that Plan B was where the fuck she was going to curl up that night so she could wait out until morning. Before she could start scouting, she paused, staring into the darkness.

 

She could see in the distance a figure, and immediately she was pulling out her pistol and shrinking against a wall, watching it warily. It was stumbling, clutching at it’s side, and she realized quickly it was too small to be a Super Mutant, too thin and too short. She peered around the corner, seeing nothing immediately dangerous, and ran for the stranger, meeting him just as he fell to his knees. It was a man, dressed plainly, clutching at his side which was stained red. She could smell the copper before she got to him, and her hands were immediately on his shoulders, keeping him upright. He looked tired, old and worn and so, _so_ tired, bleeding slowly from the corners of the mouth and down from the nose in slow, persistent lines, but his eyes were fluttering open occasionally and she could see he was still functioning somewhere beneath his slowly bleeding exterior.

 

“Hey, hey.” She tried to get his attention, and he only barely seemed to hear her, but barely was better than nothing, really. “Look, just-hold on a sec, okay, just-here, lemme-” She cut herself off as she tried to shift herself under his arm and pull him to his feet. He was heavy, and his legs were wavering and unhelpful, and she nearly toppled at first. It took a lot of effort and concentration to center his weight so she could drag him forward, and the longer she took the more it seemed he was fading. “Of course all the guards vanish just as you show up.” She grumbled, annoyed because maybe a guard could have given her assistance carrying him. She wasn’t thinking about getting in herself anymore, but she approached the receiver none the less, because he needed to get inside as soon as possible. She couldn’t hit the button while carrying him, and he was unable to support himself, so she helped him lay down as best she could. The wound on his side looked bad, _really_ bad - she couldn’t see the real damage, not with his hands there, but his shirt was red in a large circle out from it, having soaked up enough blood to color it much larger than the wound, and that told her enough - and she tried not to think about what would happen if she failed to help him.

 

“Hey, hey, so there’s a guy out here, and he’s _really_ hurt, and you need to let me get him inside.” She told the receiver, a little panicked. “He’s bleeding everywhere and it looks like-like he got into somethin’ _real bad_ and I don’t think I could patch him up myself out here. He needs a real Doc real fast.” She tried not to let her voice shake, and she didn’t get a response for a long moment, and it dawned on her quickly how badly she had fucked up. By telling her little fib earlier, she’d cried wolf at the wrong time, and now they wouldn’t believe her when she asked for help. She hit the machine, a little panicked now. “Come on, you think I’m gonna come up here ‘n lie just to get you to let me in?” She asked, trying very hard to sound sincere and upset so they wouldn’t think she was lying.

 

“Piper, look. I don’t care how badly you need to get in, I won’t open the door for you. Even if you have a mysterious injured person with you. There are other places you can go. I’m sorry. The amount of trouble I’d get in would be too much, and you too.” The machine crackled, and then went silent. This was some _shit_ , of course, but Piper understood. If she _was_ lying, they’d probably punish her a lot worse than just locking her out, and the guard too. She pressed her head to the cold metal and sighed, long and deep, fingers curling around the edge. She wouldn’t be allowed back in, not without a miracle, not without some kind of intervention, and there were so many things in those walls that meant so much to her that it was painful to think of not returning. But maybe a leave of absence would be good, she told herself, for her sister. Maybe Nat would learn to be a better person without her there, and she leaned into the receiver and pressed the button, letting it crackle silently for a moment before she spoke.

 

“Just… take care of my sister. Don’t let anything happen to her, okay? She’s-I’d die if I came back and something had happened.” She was quiet, speaking to the receiver like she was confessing something personal to a priest, her prayer that maybe her sister would be okay in the hands of the city, without her, and it was silent for a moment before it crackled to life.

 

“I will.” He said, soft as she was, quiet as she was. They both knew this was a goodbye that neither of them wanted to have, but both were obligated to go through with. “You stay safe out there, okay? Good luck.” And he said it like she’d need it, and she nodded, pulling back, wiping her face and assessing the situation. She couldn’t feel emotional about leaving, not right now, not with someone literally dying at her feet - she wanted to help people, help get the truth out there, and to let a man die when she could have done something would have meant her morals had left her. Piper sat back on her heels, looking from the box to the body behind her, trying to figure out what the next step was now that she was a Diamond City Exile, officially and everything. There were other places she could go, sure as fuck, but they weren’t close, and there was danger between her and them, and she was going to have to cart a man nearly twice her size blocks and blocks before she found another location that had medical equipment enough for what he was going through. This was a terrible situation all the way around, really, and she had precious little time before it became a lot worse.

 

The first thing she did was dig through her bag, trying to find any kind of medical supplies. She didn’t know how to treat him, and she traveled light, but she had a roll of gauze and some duct tape, and that seemed like it would be useful. She pulled his hands back - and he seemed aware enough to fight her, and it took her gentle cooing to get him to release his death grip - and looked under his shirt, wincing at the damage. It was definitely something with claws, deep and large, and the wound was bleeding furiously, soaking through the white shirt quickly and dripping down his pants. Around the wound it was red and looked burned, and she didn’t think that was a good sign, either. All she could hope to do was press the gauze to the wound and tape it down, replacing his hand there, letting him keep the pressure constant. Maybe the little bit of extra to soak up the blood would keep him alive until they got where they were going. Wound as dressed as she could get it, it came time to move him, and she struggled with how to do so. He was heavy, and she couldn’t just straight up fireman carry him out of there. She needed a hand for her gun, and she hoped he could have a hand on his, just in case. Eventually, she decided to try and lift him to standing, pulling his arm over her shoulder and getting her legs under them both, see if he would give her some effort in the legs department on his end.

 

“Look, we can’t go in Diamond City, so I’m gonna have t’walk you somewhere else and I’d really appreciate your help.” She told him, her knees trying not to buckle under his dead weight as she tried to heave him to his feet. “Even if all you give me is your gun up and a little additional leg support.” She heaved, and luckily he was still awake, at least a little, and he locked his knees under them so they both didn’t fall over. It wasn’t much, but it was good, and Piper grinned in relief, because she was standing and he was helping her a bit and that’s all she wanted. She tried to take a step, and he stumbled along with her, doing his best just to keep his knees from buckling under them so they didn’t completely fall. “Thanks.” Piper whispered, as they slow hobbled their way together out of the walls of the outer city, past the turrets putting fretfully at the gates.

 

It was satisfying when she heard him grunt something in response, the most verbal indication he could hear her that she’d gotten since she found him. He didn’t try and look up, or say words, but he sounded like he was trying to say _you_ _’re welcome_ as much as he was trying to say _thanks._ Piper chuckled, sneaking them along in the shadows of dark buildings, keeping out of site and quiet. There was only one place she ever knew to go out here that wasn’t miles away, and it was a dangerous trek. Goodneighbor was a nearby city, and it was full of thugs and rascals as far as the rest of Diamond City was aware. But even filled with vagabonds and thieves, they wouldn’t leave a dying man on the streets for their life, which was something. They would take anybody - ghouls, synths, tramps, killers - so there was a high likely hood they’d take a Diamond City Exile and her wounded, dying companion. At least, that’s what she hoped anyway.

 

And that’s if they survived the trip there. She ducked under a building, pressing a gloved hand over the man’s mouth to keep his breathing volume low, because she heard something. There were a lot of things that could kill them between Diamond City and Goodneighbor - Raiders, mongrel dogs, mole rats, mutant hounds, stray Brotherhood of Steel members, Super Mutants - and they hadn’t even gone five steps out of the safety of the light before they found one. The Super Mutant’s voice was deep, and Piper was lucky they were stupid and had terrible eyesight, because eventually it mumbled something about hearing things and wandered off to other parts of the building. They advanced, slowly, crouched low amid the debris, Piper checking every corner thoroughly, trying hard not to use her weapon because she was low on ammo and raiders were far too good at hearing gunshots at a distance, and it took them almost until morning to reach the final stretch, the city walls not far in front of them.

 

Piper moved towards them, out in the open for the first time, and the low voice behind her made her freeze. She could feel the eyes on her back, hear the low grunt of the Super Mutant, the slow click of a weapon being readied, and her whole body locked up in that one instant, locked up tight. Shivers went down her spine, and she felt her muscles tighten, like maybe she could spring around and fire, even though she could tell from the hum that what she was predicting in that second probably couldn’t happen. It was only when the legs beside hers started to try and move on their own that she moved, and she was lucky the stranger wanted to run, found the energy to move and quickly, because another second out there would have left them dusted just outside the walls that they all but fell behind, the door slamming just as the rattle of mini gun fire picked up and clattered into it. Their sprint had them on the ground, winded, Piper laughing because close calls was her speciality and that, of all things, was a close call, and she had felt the first wave of bullets on the tails of her coat and it had a rush to her veins that she couldn’t live without.

 

“My, my. First time I’ve had anyone throw themselves at my feet, but I can’t say I’m not honored.” There was a voice above her, and she looked up and a little behind, seeing a ghoul standing over her, red coat and blue and white belt and a hearty, warm grin considering the cut of his face. He reached out to help her, and she took his hands, pulling herself to her feet. She’d never been to Goodneighbor, never met anyone there and had only heard stories from people around her, but she figured, from the way people stayed back to the way the ghoul was smiling at her and her companion that he was probably the Mayor. She’d heard he was a ghoul, heard he had turned, heard even that he’d been run out of Diamond City himself once, and she figured this was probably the man they were looking for. “Name’s Hancock. What can I help you with?”

 

“He’s dying.” And that’s all she had to say, trying to help the man to his feet and finding he wasn’t conscious enough to help her help him, dead weighting her down, because she watched his face go from delighted and amused to immediately concerned, dark, dead eyes casting over them under furrowed brows. “We need your help.”


	3. Chapter 3

They’d dragged the body up to Hancock’s personal apartment, one arm over each of their shoulders enough to cart the heavy dead weight up a few flights of stairs and down a long hall. No one argued with the decision - honestly, Piper noticed, most people didn’t even give them a sideways glance or seem to care that they had a half dead man they were supporting up the stairs - and they tossed the injured man gently onto the only available bed. There were no real hospitals in Goodneighbor, just street vendors, so the Mayor’s personal quarters were at least clean and that was probably the best they had. Hancock had some medical supplies, better than what Piper had, and she ran down to the street to purchase the rest of the things they needed. Whatever had decided to wreck the injured man did a good job, tearing him open almost to the cose, and he needed stitches, new bandages, ointment, pain killers, and all sorts of other things. Med-X was a thing Hancock already had on hand, and he had a few Stimpacks to help with recovery, but the rest of the supplies only arrived when Piper returned with them. They gave him Radaway and Rad-X in what probably seemed like excess, made a decent enough attempt at suturing the wound closed with a fishing hook and a bit of medical grade thread, wrapped him up like a mummy and laid him out on the bed, letting him rest there. He looked like a mummy in a tomb, locked in place by bandages and dead for ages, and that was all they could really do for him. It came down to his own desires as to whether he’d be okay - he just had to wake up, so all they could do was wait. Wait and talk.

 

That was four days ago, and Piper found herself bonding a little with this strange, junkie ghoul of a Mayor while they waited over the bedside of the stranger they’d both decided to rescue. Piper was always wary of new people, especially political figures - she’d had more than her fair share of arguments with a different, less likable Mayor before, and she was ready to brace herself for this one being no different - but after four days of conversation, decent meals and enough cards for her to learn _Caravan_ pretty well, she’d found he wasn’t actually that bad of a person. Hancock was more crass than most of the people Piper knew, but he was honest, and that was a refresher, considering the world she’d been part of before, or even the place she’d lived before that. When she told him she was exiled from Diamond City, he responded with sympathy, like he’d been in the same state before, and she sympathized back, because even if he’d never been exiled from specifically Diamond City, they could bond under the idea that being exiled from what should be home sucked ass. He was determined and bold about his politics, unafraid of the occasional scuffle, and he really wanted his city to be for all people - ghouls, synths, run aways, drug addicts, vagabonds, and the like. The idea of all actually meaning _all_ was a bit surprising to the reporter, and when she expressed this, Hancock seemed to at least understand where her surprise came from. She was used to _all_ meaning _mostly everyone with a few exceptions_.

 

She told him she ran a news paper, that she worked on getting the truth out there, because Diamond City was holding out and not telling the public things they needed to know, and that she had a sister that she hoped was safe without her, and he would nod and deal another hand or light a cigarette and smile in this knowing, gentle way that said he understood her problems but didn’t want to comment on them too much. He was tight lipped, and of course Piper took that as a challenge, trying to get as much of his story as she could with gentle prying. She only really _succeeded_ once, just once, on the fourth night, when Hancock decided to throw fuck all to the wind and rummage around for some chems. He’d tried to be sober long enough for the Vault Dweller - and they could tell he was one, from the lack of tan to his skin to the lack of burns from radiation to the way he was able to just sleep peacefully without nightmares - to wake up, but on the fourth day he was tried of waiting and the itch of chems was starting to get too strong and he didn’t want to deny himself anymore.

 

He’d offered some to Piper, who declined. She’d never had chems, and this probably wasn’t a good time to start. A beer caught her interest, though, and she’d had a few of those before - okay, more than a _few -_ and with both of their vices satisfied, they sat next to each other on the sofa and a long, healthy silence gave way to the most open conversation they’d had since they met. The Jet Hancock took slowed down his speech, but it made him less guarded, and he spent a lot of the time talking where in other conversations he mostly listened. They talked to each other about family, about how it is to leave a sibling behind and hope they’re okay, which was something Hancock was surprisingly familiar with. Piper learned a few secrets about some people that meant she was _right_ about some things, and along with the warm feeling in her gut that wasn’t wrong, it came with a surprisingly heavy sinking feeling that her sister was in more danger than she needed to be in. But Hancock gave her some assurance that Nat was safe, laying on the sofa with his head on the cushions and his legs slung gently over the arm. His head was nearly in her lap, and she wondered honestly if he wanted it there or not.

 

“So… how d’ya become a ghoul?” She asked, slurring her words slightly, having decided instead of offering her lap space to the other she would curl up against the other arm and spread her legs out over the sofa. Hancock didn’t seem to mind the intrusion of her boot in his space, staring back at her in a way that probably wasn’t comfortable but one that he hadn’t moved from in several minutes. “I mean, if that’s not too sens’tive a question.” She was on her third beer, and she realized a little too slowly that maybe asking someone how they basically died wasn’t kosher in some spaces. Hancock chuckled, slow, everything about how he was seemingly drawn out and stretched because of the Jet. It probably helped he was on his fifth hit of the stuff.

 

“ _Drugs_.” He sighed, and everything he said was a sigh at this point, like the exhale of smoke from his lungs, long and slow and purposeful. He stretched his arms above his head, the motion drawn out and long. “The wrong kind of drugs.” He seemed like, even high, there were subjects he didn’t want to elaborate on, and this seemed like one of them, so Piper didn’t ask why he picked out drugs that would turn him into a ghoul and focused on the more fascinating bits of the conversation. Like how apparently you can just _become_ a ghoul, like a flash in a pan, no questions it just _happens_ one day. She thought she remembered finding an old pre-war book with a similar theme, though the main character became a cockroach, which was someone similar to a radroach except usually smaller, and in this instance significantly larger.

 

“So y’just… poof?” Piper made a hand motion that mimicked an explosion, and Hancock laughed, hard, back arching off the sofa he was laughing so hard. “I thought it took like, ages to get that way.” She frowned. “Why d’ya still do drugs if one of ’um turned ya int’a a ghoul?”

 

“I knew going in th’ stuff could make me turn, took it anyway, not doin’ it again. Besides, if I’m already a ghoul, what’s the worst that can happen?” Hancock replied, a cheeky smile on his face. “I don’t think chems can kill a ghoul, s’far as I know.” He chuckled, sitting up slightly and turning over to take the inhaler that held the ever mystical substance that was Jet. Piper eyed it slightly, before getting up and rummaging around in her bag. She had a flask in there, she always did, because alcohol strong enough was as good an antiseptic as it was a conversation easer, and she’d been saving it for a night she really wanted it. Right now, she really wanted it. She was wobbly, and thinking of doing something stupid, and trapped in this apartment with a half dead man and a full alive ghoul and she couldn’t go home and the longing in her stomach made it churn. The vodka in the flask hit her harder than the beers had, but she couldn’t taste the alcohol at this point and just wanted to make sure if she did something regrettable she wouldn’t remember it. She probably could have started drinking straight gasoline and wouldn’t have tasted the burn, considering how many beers she’d had in the short amount of time they’d been talking.

 

At least Nat wasn’t here to see her like this, drunk and stumbling in a stranger’s apartment that she was only just getting to know.

 

She stumbled back to the sofa, and Hancock was sitting up now, holding the inhaler with a concerned glint in his eye but a smile on his face. Piper flopped down on the abused furniture, and the force threatened to break it, but she just bounced back from the landing and leaned forward, passing Hancock the flash. He appreciated the hefty swig he took, the grin on his face when he handed it back thank you enough, and Piper capped it, placing it on the table. Her elbows were on her knees, and she looked to Hancock with the kind of serious face a four year old gives, where it’s somewhere between actually serious and almost a little silly because they’re not sure how serious is supposed to look. Hancock nonchalantly took another hit off the Jet, exhaling it slowly.

 

“I wanna try it.” Piper finally said. It had taken her this much to get up the gumption to try the chem, and it was mostly because of the alcohol. She’d been reserved about taking chems at first, because she was worried they would get her into the kind of trouble she couldn’t get herself out of, afraid, even. Afraid of getting addicted, of being in the wrong place when she took them. She’d heard they weren’t all that bad, when you were with the right people and in the right state of mind, but she was always worried she wouldn’t know what that state of mind was until it was too late to get there. And getting addicted to chems seemed like the absolute worst thing she could do for her sister. But tonight seemed like the right kind of night for it, and it wasn’t just because her inhibitions were so low they were through the floor. She, on some strange level, trusted Hancock - not just as a dealer, making sure she wasn’t inhaling mostly toxins, but as someone who would make sure the drug didn’t completely screw her over. And with her recent exile, she wasn’t really as worried about influencing her sister’s choices.

 

“I thought you didn’t like chems.” Hancock chuckled, shaking the inhaler anyway. He didn’t know if you actually needed to shake it, but he’d been doing it for so long it was mostly habit at this point. Piper sat up and held out her hand, and he shook his head, chuckling gently. It was almost funny how drunkenly desperate she was to try it. “Nuh-uh. Not until you tell me what changed.”

 

“I want to know what it’s like.” Piper grumbled, crossing her arms. “’N I trust you now, that’s what’s changed. I never said nothin’ about hatin’ chems, just being wary of ‘um. But I figure since you’re around, ‘n you know your way around this stuff, probably is th’best place t’start if I wanted t’try it.” She watched Hancock’s smile soften, and apparently what she said was enough, because his resolve softened at the same time. She wasn’t lying, of course - she had, on some level, always wanted to try chems to see what they felt like, see what it was like to get high, because the easiest way to get the truth was to experience it. And Hancock did seem to know his shit about some drugs. The only thing she failed to mention was that she had her own little addiction - trouble. She itched for that rush of doing something probably stupid, and after their near death escape, it had been too many days and she needed that rush. Just the idea of asking for the drugs was making her heart pump hard, and she had a smile on her face that told Hancock she knew what she was getting into. She wasn’t the only one in the room with a need for a little trouble now and then.

 

“Good enough.” He chuckled, patting the sofa beside her. “You ever taken an inhaler chem before?” He asked, and boy was it hard to walk her through the steps when everything was going so, so slow. She slipped close to him, right next to him, and he held out the Jet container at the level of her face, clear that she wasn’t going to touch it and he’d do it for her. She shook her head, looking to him for information, and he shook the Jet canister again. “Put y’mouth on the open bit and take the biggest breath you can, I’ll do th’rest. S’gonna feel weird, s’okay if you start coughing. Ready?” He held out the Jet, and it was strangely intimate how close they were when she leaned in to put her lips over the mouthpiece. When she inhaled, he pressed down on the top, and it hissed out a puff of air which caught Piper off guard. She pulled back, coughing deep in her lungs, lung fibers irritated. Hancock shook the can again, holding it out still. “One more, just t’be sure.” He smiled, watching her try again, and this time she didn’t cough it all back up in the first second. She coughed a little, but it was more like she cleared her throat.

 

He took another hit - he could take so many because he was a ghoul, and it took a lot more to get him high than it did to get her high - and set the canister down on the table, watching Piper start to feel it. Jet was a remarkable drug, he knew, and the first hit was always the strongest and the weirdest feeling. Jet slowed the world down to a radsnail’s pace, and he could see on her face that her world was starting to slow. Of course, she was cross buzzing a bit, the intoxication from the alcohol mixing with the Jet and making it so that the world wasn’t just slow, it lagged behind her eyes. She looked up, and Hancock could see she was tipping, and he helped her lay down on the sofa the same way he’d been laying - head on the cushions and legs over the arm. “How y’feeling, love?” He asked, watching her eyes focus and unfocus, the pupils shrinking and growing at a slow pace.

 

“Heavy.” She replied, after a moment. Her whole world had started to crawl, and it took her a long time to actually figure out how to form words again. Hancock laid down beside her, heads next to each other, his legs over the other arm. They stared up at the ceiling together, watching it start to swim a little in their vision, watching the fan embedded into the ceiling slow to a crawl. Piper could count the number of times it spun before her heart beat again. It felt like everything was dipped in syrup, viscous and crawling along like sap down a tree. She lifted her hand and it felt heavy to move, and it took her so long to lift it that she was almost surprised she could hold it above her face and stare at her hand. She could almost see the heartbeat in her veins of her wrist and fingers, the slow thumping pulse moving her skin around. She breathed in, slowly, so slowly, and out again, feeling the weight of her chest rising and falling. “Is this how all drugs feel?” She eventually asked, forcing out each word separately, taking what felt like a lifetime in between the syllables. Hancock chuckled, and it sounded slower than usual to her, and it made her laugh as well.

 

“If you think this feels good, wait until you get fucked like this.” Hancock hummed, and he looked over when he was met with silence to see Piper staring at the ceiling, face a deep red and eyes wide. He laughed, hands on his stomach and nearly sitting up he was curling on himself so hard, and she eventually reached up and punched him lightly in the arm. He relaxed back, and so did she, basking in their slow crawl of time together, quiet now, listening only to the sound of their breathing.

 

Eventually, Piper fell asleep, as a drunken cross buzz is wont to do, and Hancock stumbled to his feet, grabbing a blanket and throwing it over her, putting a pillow under her passed out head. He didn’t feel sleepy, and he stepped outside into the wet and rainy evening, lighting up a cigarette with a smile.


End file.
